Rice Farming

I would like any info on farming rice. Can you grow it in NY?, or do you need a southern state? Would a McCormick-Deering WR-9S or any McCormick Rice Special be good for work? How do you harvest rice? Is there a special machine? Any information would help a lot. Thanks!

Don't know how far North rice will grow. At the present time, rice is harvested with a combine. Rice presently is grown in AR, CA, and LA? The fields there are flood irrigated and the combines need 4wd to go through the wet ground, and I have seen pics of combines with small dover tracks on the front.

100 years ago and earlier rice was grown in tidewater SC and GA. Fields were located in drained swamps along rivers and the elevation was kept at a level that when the ocean tides were high, the field would flood. The amount of water was regulated by a valve arrangement called a rice trunk made from cypress lumber. The rice trunk could be set to drain the field and not let in water at high tide so that the field could be dried for harvest or for plowing and planting in the spring. The object of flooding rice fields is to irrigate the crop for better yield, and to cover weeds and drown them out so the weeds wouldn't compete with the growing rice.
After harvest, the rice has to have hulls on the seed removed, then proccessed or consumption. In the early days of rice cultivation, some one invented machinery for this and I'm sure it is much improved at the present time.

There is a variety of wild rice grown somewhere in the great lakes region. I vaguely remember that some Indian tribe(s) in the area have exclusive rights to harvest wild rice in some areas. Suggest you Google wild rice. That variety might grow in NY state.

KEH

I grew rice for many years, just guessing I would say you would be wasting your time, you need about 105 dd50 days(heat thermal units) and a lot of special equipment plus some way to mill it!